Why Is Louis Vuitton Being Accused Of Promoting Prostitution?

Earlier this month, Louis Vuitton rolled out a promo film video for its fall 2013 show. Katie Grand styled Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, Georgia May Jagger, and more in Marc Jacobs‘ sexy lingerie, while director James Lima had them strut around like streetwalkers along Rue du Pont Neuf in Paris. We were dubious that actual lovely ladies would buy fancy underthings at Vuitton, but as far as fashion films go, this one was alright.

But not everyone liked it. Vuitton has been accused of promoting prostitution, and according to a letter from a moderate right minister and a Socialist senator in London’s Sunday Times via the Daily Telegraph, the company is ”assimilating luxury with the world’s second most profitable criminal activity after drug trafficking”. Lawyer Dominique Attias also signed a letter in France’s newspaper Libération:

“[The film] portrayed women’s bodies as an object and prostitution as something that is playful and enjoyable. This is very damaging because we are trying to fight the idea, to which some young women in France subscribe, that prostitution is banal and just a way of getting money to buy clothes.”

The accusation is damaging to the say the least, but Grand, Jacobs, and the rest of the team must’ve known that creating the film would cause this kind of backlash. This is also Jacobs we’re talking about — that man is definitely not going to apologize for the film.